This as the Prime Minister lectures on marmite sandwiches…
Annual report finds more NZ kids living in material hardship than last year
A new government child poverty report shows more kids and young people are living in material hardship than last year.
The annual report on the child and youth strategy looked at a range of child poverty measures and indicators between July 2023 and June 2024.
It showed that 13.4 percent of people aged between 0 and 17 were classified as being in material hardship.
That’s a 0.9 percent increase on the year prior and a 2.9 percent rise on the period between July 2021 and June 2022.
Over the period of the latest report there has also been an increase in the number of young people in families receiving a benefit, more avoidable hospitalisations, declined immunisation rates for babies and more food insecurity compared to the year prior.
…this as trans nationals gobble up the school lunch food programme…
School lunch provider Compass Group gobbles up rich Govt contracts
Compass Group has contracts with the public sector worth more than $210 million this year.
This means the Government is a significant customer for the school lunch provider, whose most recent public financials put its total New Zealand revenue at $296.5m.
Compass Group NZ (CGNZ), wholly owned by a British-based multinational public company, has been under fire this year for multiple failings in delivering its $80m-a-year school lunch contract.
“We openly acknowledge there have been challenges, we welcome feedback from students and schools and know that there is still work to be done,” CGNZ managing director Paul Harvey said.
Critics are now questioning whether the company is paying enough tax and whether taxpayers’ money should go into overseas shareholders’ pockets.
…this as people are more concerned about the economy…
Ipsos Cost of Living Monitor: Kiwis pessimistic despite economy improving
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- The Ipsos Cost of Living Monitor, released to the Herald, shows how pessimistic Kiwis feel about household costs, inflation and the cost of living in the coming months.
- Inflation sat at 2.2% for the latter half of last year, while GDP grew 0.7% in the December quarter.
- Last week, the Reserve Bank cut the Official Cash Rate to 3.5%.
A significant portion of New Zealanders remain pessimistic about their finances, a quarter struggling financially and 41% expecting their disposable income to shrink in the coming year.
Those on low incomes are particularly struggling, according to the latest Ipsos Cost of Living Monitor, and increasingly so: 38% said they are having difficulty managing financially, up from 25% in May 2022, when inflation peaked at 7.3%.
This represents a 52% increase in just under three years of those on low incomes who are struggling.
…we are feeding our kids corporate slop, cutting welfare and imposing sanctions via AI and slashing public services all se we can afford borrowed tax cuts and landlord loopholes.
Strangling the common good for donor interests is what this Government does.
We are a better people than this Government believes we are.
Increasingly having independent opinion in a mainstream media environment which mostly echo one another has become more important than ever, so if you value having an independent voice – please donate here.
The Guardian
UK centric yet same-same.
Neoliberalism destroys democratic hope and the far right fills the political void. We need a new politics of belonging, not Labour’s craven appeasement of capital
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/28/fascism-britain-neoliberalism-opened-door-for-it-labour
Also:
A book by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison
The Invisible Doctrine
The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life)
https://guardianbookshop.com/the-invisible-doctrine-9781802062694/
“How can you fight something if you don’t know it exists?”
“We live under an ideology that preys on every aspect of our lives: our education and our jobs; our healthcare and our leisure; our relationships and our mental wellbeing; the planet we inhabit – the very air we breathe. So pervasive has it become that, for most people, it has no name. It seems unavoidable, like a natural law.”
Labour then ACT’s roger douglas’s neoliberalism was meant to do one thing and one thing only. To enable privateers to be able to legally steal our taxes paid for stuff and and things. Let that sink in before daring to offer up a counter argument.
@ Maori @ Farmers @ Chloe Swarbrick currently with The Green/beige Party. ( Chloe? Start your own party. Immediately. The Green Party is diseased and the disease is incurable. Give a dog a bad name etc. )
You guys are the only ones who can fix the nightmare that roger and his clones have pushed us all overboard into. Keep your thinking simple because there’s great beauty in simplicity, and keep your actions clear and decisive. Here’s what I think you need to do. Stop feeding the monster who feeds off you. @ Maori. This is your show now. Sure, invite those few good farmers into the fold but understand, AO/NZ farmers are, by and large, fucked. They’re exhausted, broke and confused and they have nowhere to turn to. They think they know urban AO/NZ hates them and they think their only refuge is in those who most abuse them. Ignore the ignorant, racist narrative propagated by national party minions and go and hug a farmer. Today. They’ll wriggle and blush but they’ll love you for it.
Strike, until we get a Royal Commission of Inquiry up and into roger and his rich, privateer gangster clans including the pathetic little arse hole seymour and those Pirate privateers who operate him. Lets drag the dirty laundry outside into the sunshine. Aye Boys ?
RIP Ma. xx
Magnificent, KWT. Third line.
Labour last term presented the environment for fighting for the neediest but despite the Ardern/Robertson bullshit it didn’t amount to what was needed. Now we are back to these cunts who say improving the economy will raise all boats and that will deal with poverty. Disgusting.
Hope you’re well and having fun, i.e, not spending too much time on here.
Good report. It’s better late than never Labour or is it labour has to impose a serious capital gains tax and a wealth tax plus reverse the interest paid deductibilty provision. Also get rid of Compass Group with its shareholder leeches and return to what worked local kiwis providing young kiwis their lunches.
“We openly acknowledge there have been challenges, we welcome feedback from students and schools and know that there is still work to be done,” CGNZ managing director Paul Harvey said. “ Corporate BLAH BLAH BLAH OR VERBAL b.s. SMOKESCREEN. In other words a polite f.u. with the finger up. Seymour has sold us out for 30 pieces of silver to these Compass scum.
Child poverty increasing under this government, thank you for making this clear. It is still unclear to a few on this site that this CoC is making things worse on all measures of health and child poverty.
Same old same old: the transfer of public wealth into private hands until we’re malnourished living on the streets of a land that once was ours!
I have a question because I’ve just had a realisation!
graeme hart donated a total of $700,000.00 to national, act and nz first for the last election. $400,000 to national, $200,000 to act and $100,000 to fucking nz first. I can’t compete with that and I’m guessing neither can that many of you guys, if any, so my question is: How, the fuck, is that democratic? Legalities mean nothing in Nu Zillind, I’ve come to accept that but how is an individual like hart able to purchase our politicians to do his bidding when we can’t? But wait, there’s more! While we stand by watching on agog and in horror at graeme hart literally buying our politicians to have then inarguably in his pocket while we lot must take it like bullied kids. How the fuck is that ok? Why do we put up with that? Would that then mean that if I went to parliament buildings and paid national, act and nz first $800,000 I could get a public inquiry into and up national, act and nz first for literally taking bribes. Because if that’s not how it works then lobbying should be illegal and voting should be mandated.
dont for get the 500k from the rich people in the racing industry .
We can expect nothing from this budget:
No changes to working to families- fixed amounts and threshold for 27% abatement (total income only $42,700) for another year means a serious decline in real terms for struggling ‘working’ families
No benefit changes or improvements
Families on benefits still will be denied around $5000 pa WFF for their children
No changes to the threshold for student loans repayment- frozen at just over $24,000
Food prices are up again and in the meantime our marmite sandwich PM is trying to say crime is down more bullshit from a COC government failing to deliver.
This government is failing us. It’s time to send a clear message: We have NO confidence in this coalition.
✍ Sign the petition now and share widely → https://chng.it/JYvm6V7PjK
Big announcement today that they are going to spend 100 million that the last government had allocated for new class rooms .Suddenly that money has just turned up out of the blue .Bull shit ,these are the rooms already actioned by the last government and scrapped by the minister and her sleazy side kick in the first 100 days frenzy of scraping for the sake of scraping .Now she has done a back flip and they are back on and she makes out it is a completly new 100 million
Food prices rising faster than ever again .More poverty for the under fed .